Ruby Symbols vs Strings in Hashes

Question

I have this hash:

{
  \"title\"=>\"Navy to place breath-test machines on all its ships\", 
  \"url\"=>\"http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=a6         


        

Answer 1

:url is a Symbol which is different than the String 'url'

> :ruby == "ruby­"
=> false

You can convert back and forth between the two using to_s and to_sym

> "ruby".to_­sym
=> :ruby
> :ruby.to_s
=> "ruby"